Shop accidents!

[toxo]

I didn't want to tag this onto the sewing machine accidents post so I'll say it here.

Many years ago an engineering pal told me about the day when when a 1 1/2 inch by 12 inch grindstone came loose at full speed. It whizzed around the workshop 3 times causing much damage before coming to a stop such was the inertia.

My worst nightmare accident is getting a tie caught in one of those. You wouldn't be able to stop it in time. Makes me shiver. Is why ties are banned.

[Samalan]

I was a roofer, worked on church steeples, and was also a cement finisher and cabinet maker, all of which were dangerous jobs. I fell 3 feet from a steep ladder, and that was a life-changing event. you never know. LOL

[Gezzer]

Had a 1/2 x 2 1/2 carbide door panel bit come out of a running router , hit me in the stomach . Got some minor cuts and lost a shirt , wasn't my time as it  should have come out my back ....

[toxo]

15 minutes ago, Gezzer said:

Had a 1/2 x 2 1/2 carbide door panel bit come out of a running router , hit me in the stomach . Got some minor cuts and lost a shirt , wasn't my time as it  should have come out my back ....

Close shave. Did it wrap around your shirt?

[Gezzer]

33 minutes ago, toxo said:

Close shave. Did it wrap around your shirt?

 I was wearing a tee shirt which wrapped it up ,  had to cut  the bit out  of the shirt .

[AlZilla]

3 hours ago, Gezzer said:

 I was wearing a tee shirt which wrapped it up ,  had to cut  the bit out  of the shirt .

That armored tee-shirt saved you. Sucked up the energy of the spinning bit.

EDIT: 7th grade wood shop teacher was missing a couple of fingers and had a scar on the same wrist, having almost lost the hand. Years earlier his necktie got caught in a wood lathe. Maybe that's why I don't have all the great war stories you guys do ...

[Mulesaw]

I managed to get my finger caught in a rotating bit on a spindle moulder. That didn't look so pretty. 
But nothing was really harmed, so just a bit more scars to the collection. :-)

I have always been a bit scared of the Z-blades for the moulder, those things are aggressive, once a board got caught while I was shifting it around, smashed the end into a wall and made a big dent in the mortar covered wall. 

[Northmount]

Try 20 feet with an extension ladder sliding out from under me.  Landed on my feet, crushed right ankle that the MD couldn't even bother to look at the x-ray or radiologists report.  Came down between 2 rising stem gate valves on 6" lines.  Right side of my shirt was ripped open, slight scratch on my chest.  Could have ripped my shoulder off if I had been a few inches further forward.  Very thankful that didn't happen.  The ankle was bad enough, limped for 15 years.  Still can't bear to lace up an ice skate to go skating 54 years later.  For years, too much or too little exercise on that ankle resulted in severe pain.  Had to keep moving, but not too much,

We have lots of safety standards.  They are there for a reason.  If I had waited for my fellow worker to come back and brace the ladder before I stepped down onto the rung, this wouldn't have happened.  He was called away because a couple 1000 scfm air compressors had tripped and had to be restarted immediately else the whole utility plant that supplied steam, compressed air, 54MW of electricity, utility water, boiler feed water, cooling water would have been lost and the whole process including a refinery would have shut down.  We were in a isolated location 100 miles from the electrical grid.  I should have just sat there and waited!

[mbnaegle]

Had some mishaps over the years, always due to being an idiot with a tool or using it without the proper guards. Personally, I don't like trying to make machine's "idiot proof" as it seems that they keep coming up with better idiots, but if something had a guard when it was new, it's better to keep it in place and adjust your job rather than take it off and forget about it. Ultimately, no guard will compensate for someone not keeping their mind on their work or trying to do it faster than is safe. It's better to treat the machine like it would kill you if it could, like a tiger on a chain, not a kitten to play with. 

I was cutting up some 3x3x3 hardwood blocks a few years back and didn't plan ahead and cut them to length before I sized the height/width on the jointer or planer. Being in a hurry, I made the idiot decision to run the short blocks through the table saw. One bound up and kicked back into my face, making a comical *ploink* noise and I later found it had a dent in the side where it hit the floor AFTER hitting me. It momentarily dislocated my jaw, knocked my safety glasses off my face, vision went blurry for a bit, and I was bleeding pretty good. Got a ride to the hospital and was EXTREAMLY LUCKY that it just skipped off my face doing no bone damage, no bruising, and I only needed 14 stitches and some superglue to get put back together. Also fortunate that the ER guy on duty that day specialized in facial sutures, and he dug some wood shrapnel out of my face. Got a neat scar out of the deal, but better than that I gained more respect for using a table saw correctly and I replaced the missing blade guard. I finished the blocks later (belt sander), which were being cut into some support rests for a tool, and the one with the buzz mark across the side where the blade caught It I kept visible for a personal reminder.

Speaking of table saws, long before my time my dad worked with a leather shop that did silver work as well. He was doing some silver work on a mechanical die press and it took the last 1/4" off of one thumb. He went to the hospital but didn't bring the severed bit, so they had to pull the bottom edge of the wound up under the nail (which he said hurt the most). For the longest time, he had one thumb shorter than the other, which made for some fun stories, until one day he cut 1/4" off of the OTHER thumb while using a table saw. This time the doctors didn't want the bit and stitched it up like they had the other thumb, so for many years he kept the severed bit in his desk in a little jar of formaldehyde. He used to say when he was buried he wanted us to burry ALL of him, but when he passed we couldn't find it (I miss him anyway and don't mind if he wants to haunt me).

Speaking of thumb's, another time I was making adjustments to a band knife splitter, which required the machine to be opened up but running so I can see how it was moving and make adjustments. While I was sitting and giving it a moment to run, I noticed one of the blade wipers was vibrating. I thought that it was covering the blade and I stuck my thumb on it to see if the vibration would stop, and when I did it slid back letting the blade slice into my thumb about 1/2". The guy I was with wanted to call 911 but after I had a chance sit and to breath through the wooziness, it didn't seem so bad once I taped it up, so I finished my work for the day and went home. When I got there my visiting father-in-law helped me re-dress it and told me 'Nope. You're going to the hospital.' Once there, the nurse messed around with it cleaning it out and by-golly that was x10 worse than when it happened. They recommended stitches but too much time had passed (6 hours), so they would have to cut it back open If I wanted it to leave less of a scar. I was more concerned with infection than cosmetics and they confirmed that I didn't NEED stitches, so they taped it up and gave me some antibiotics. As it healed, I realized I had cut through a nerve as the end of my thumb had lost feeling, but it closed up fine and didn't hurt. After 3 or so years I've got about 90% feeling in the end again. I've gotten nicked by non-moving band knives plenty of times over the years, but I still cringe when I think of getting my fingers that close to a moving blade again.

 

[bruce johnson]

When I first got my business license I had a county inspection - some work place guy and a fire dept inspector. Not  pain in the a** guys, they just wanted to know what they’d up against in a fire or industrial accident. I’m a one man shop so mostly formality probably. Really pretty cool guys. The work-place guy noticed I didn’t have a workplace safety poster in place. He said to just send him a picture when I got it and he’d sign me off. I came up with this. He said it was official enough for him and one of the best he’d seen. 

[TomE]

Not really a shop accident, but for the last 17 years my "shop" has been horse barns with broodmares and youngsters.  We had purchased a mare that hadn't been handled much.  I getting to know her and trimming a hind foot when she decided to jump through/over me.  She didn't make it and broke 3 long bones in my foot, although I didn't know it at the time.

A veterinarian friend stopped by the next day and offered to take some x-rays.  He determined the foot was broken.  I made an appointment with a foot/ankle surgeon and took the x-rays along.  During the appointment a thunderstorm knocked out the power and they said I'd need to come back for x-rays.  I told them I happened to have my own x-rays in my backpack.  The surgeon was impressed and said he gets x-rays from podiatrists that don't even look like a foot.  I told him that equine vets have experience radiographing patients that are less cooperative than me.  So he put me in a walking cast and sent me on my way.

Twelve years later the mare and I are like two flies on a donkey's ass.  She produced a pretty black filly this year and is pregnant for next year's foal.  She's in her late teens and this might be her last foal.  She will retire here as a babysitter of weanling foals.

 

[Dwight]

I have been very fortunate thru the years . . .  lots of times and places . . .  stuff coulda done me in . . . 

Safety gear has been part of it . . .  staying alert is a part of it . . .  not taking crazy chances . . .  all have helped out.

My guardian angel did his thing a couple weeks ago though . . . I have a table saw I bought without a blade guard . . .  got it ordered . . .  was using it before the guard got here.

I sawed down a 24 inch or so piece of 1 x 4 down to 1 x 3 or so . . . had both pieces from the other end of the saw . . . was bringing them back to me . . .  over top of the saw . . . and somehow the big piece slipped or something in my hand . . . fell down to the blade that was slowing down . . . hit it just so it would become a 1 x 3 pine rocket.

Thing caught me perfectly on my upper gum line . . . above my teeth . . . below my nose.  I looked like the guy who just lost to Mike Tyson or something for a couple of days.

Honestly . . .  my worst industrial accident ever.  

I got a hole burned in my thumb by 450 Volts aboard ship  . . .  didn't really even hurt . . .  even though I jumped like a white tail bunny . . . that was the second worst . . . 

Worked maintenance electrician and mechanic for 30 some years . . . 4 of em in the Navy . . .  climbed more ladders than I'd like to talk about . . .  used more power tools than I could probably name off in the next hour . . . 

Got a sneaking hunch  my guardian angel will wipe his brow and  say . . . "Finally . . . he's here . . . " when I walk thru the pearly gate . . .  as he has done a great job for me down thru the years.

May God bless,

Dwight

[Sheilajeanne]

My cousin's husband used to have an antique business. He would often restore antique furniture and sell it. One day, he was pushing a piece of wood through the band saw, and was using his hand to push it instead of the safer (proper)way of using a scrap piece of wood. The saw blade hit a hidden nail, his hand was pulled into the blade and he lost two fingers. The hospital managed to re-attach one of them, but the other was too badly mangled.

I don't have any major work-related accidents to report, though working with horses has left me with a few sore joints and scars. Stupidest accident was when I put a pitchfork through my rubber boot while forking manure. Fortunately, I was wearing two pairs of socks and the skin wasn't broken! I think I'd had a very late night the day before, so wasn't all that wide awake! 

Worst  horse related accident - was riding a young mare recently retired from the track. The stable had recently bought her as a school horse. They only teach the racehorses to run in the one direction, so when the instructor told us to canter, she picked up the wrong lead. She was also feeling really fresh, so she took off like she was going out of the starting gate at the track. When she hit the corner of the arena, I think she must have tried to change leads, got her legs all tied up in a knot, and crashed into the wall. 

Next thing I know, I'm lying in the dirt, my watch is ripped off my wrist, the knee of my britches is ripped open, and I've got a huge bruise above the knee and another one below the knee and everything is spinning (mild concussion).

The instructor comes over and asks if I'm okay. I shake my head, which is still spinning. Now this was the funny part. Next thing I know, I look up and HE is up on my horse, checking to see if SHE is okay!    

Eventually I managed to get back up on my feet, and took the horse back to her stall. I'd ridden that horse several times, and had mucked out her stall that morning, but couldn't remember where it was - had to ask someone!  

Yeah, definitely a bit concussed! 

Edited July 15 by Sheilajeanne

[chuck123wapati]

I haven't had relativly safe job since i was 14.  I broke out in the oil patch at 18 and spent seven years working on rigs, back when heavy drug and alcohol use was almost a requisite for employment,  then spent 30 years working in a prison maintenance shop, teaching dried out inmates how to hold a job. The last 15 years as the manager of an all-trades physical plant.  I've seen my share of really stupid accidents in my life, some deadly, done a few myself, and luckily survived like Dwight by the grace of god. Really smart people are the worst at safety IMO because they are smart enough to know better but "it'll never happen to them", idiots come in a close second because they just won't do it, followed by the guys that have "done it all their lives that way". I've taught, reprimanded and worked with all of them lol. I could gross ya'all out with the gore, but i won't. Take the small, mundane safety equipment as seriously as the rest of your gear and equipment lest you be half blind and deaf at 66 like I am, its no fun saying huh all the time, makes you feel stupid.

And yes, I said idiots lol 

[Cumberland Highpower]

My dad was a bricklayer and one summer when i was 12 we were putting up a pretty tall chimney at a neighbor's lodge.   I fell 3 stories off the scaffolding when I slipped on a bit of grit.   
After laying in the dirt and eating a little somehow I pulled myself together and got up.  

We took the rest of the day off work.

Edited July 15 by Cumberland Highpower

[Dwight]

1 hour ago, chuck123wapati said:

 Take the small, mundane safety equipment as seriously as the rest of your gear and equipment lest you be half blind and deaf at 66 like I am, its no fun saying huh all the time, makes you feel stupid.

The small mundane safety equipment was called "hearing protection" . . .  on two destroyers with 5 inch / 38 twin gun mounts.  (that's a bullet that's 5 inches in diameter . . . weighs 39 pounds . . . and can land 12 miles away . . . guaranteed within 500 feet of your landmark  . . .  the 38 means the barrel is 38 times the diameter of the bullet)

We almost pulled up along side ammo ships . . . off loaded the ammo straight to the gun mounts and let er fly.  Actually would get done with the bombardment . . .  cut the rudder . . . full speed ahead . . . out to the ammo ship in the South China Sea . . .  hated like nobody's business to get involved in any of that exercise.

There were times when one would have thought everyone except the guys down in the engine spaces were deaf.  After a couple hundred rounds . . . if you were close enough . . .  your body would shake with every loud noise . . . and you said "huh" for several hours.  

My first ship did not get "official" recognition for it . . . but we just may have been THE first ship to drop ammo on the Ho Chi Minh trail.  We were with the group of ships that spent a bunch of $$$ on 5 inch and 8 inch boo-letts . . .  messing with Charlie in the early spring of 1965 . . . pock marking the trail for miles in either direction.

Yeah . . .  little orange rubber ear plugs would have been darn near wonderful . . .  just had not been invented yet.

May God bless,

Dwight

[fredk]

I've not had serious work place accidents. The worst I've had was dropping a 5lb club hammer on me foot. It missed the steel toe cap of the boot and got the foot where it was unprotected

I've done plenty of things that should have put me in hospital or the morgue. Like lighting up a ceegar in a paint spraying area just after the painter chap had done a lot of cellulose paint spraying. That only blew the door and a window open.

Or my mechs and I used to race the garage heaters down the drive. The space heater worked like a jet engine in reverse; a small air intake pulled air thru to a sparking plug and a mixture of paraffin oil, and hot burning gasses out the rear end. We found we could turn the process around and have a jet engine. Strapped to a mech under-car dolly it could shift. So we raced them. They needed electricity for the sparking plugs so we fitted the same length of cable to each. Fired them up and sent out of the workshop and down the drive way. Of course the cable pulled out but the rockets would go on further. The record was 175 feet. It would have been further but a small ruined cottage got in the way. Had several police visits about 'mysterious' objects flying about

Got all me fingers and toes, but the hearing ain't so good. 35 years of riding noisy motorcycles and 30 years of attending noisy motor sports has ruined it. I tried ear plug a couple of times but it seriously affected my sense of balance and I nearly crashed with them in. Never used them after that 

 

[Digit]

At 42 I'm still pretty unscathed, apart from the occasional flesh wound (scratches, punctures, cuts, mildly crushed limbs, broken nails) but I've never been seriously wounded. I cracked a shoulder blade once by driving my bike straight while the road curved and I hit a crash barrier at about 80km/h (50 mph) and I also dislocated a shoulder once when falling during a hike. Lucky for me, neither of those accidents had any lasting damage.

The only lasting damage I have is caused by spending an evening next to a thickness planer without hearing protection. I spent a few weeks going crazy with tinnitus, after which it slowly died away, together with the ability to hear certain frequencies. I'm still lucky the tinnitus didn't last (it does come back when I'm tired though) and I only have have around 12dB hearing loss.
Since then I always wear hearing protection when working with machines or driving my bike. During my bike crash I was lucky to wear leather and since then I've ditched my textile bike gear.

[billybopp]

My first rock concert was Ted Nugent in 1980.  We rolled down the windows on the drive home, and it took a minute or so to realize we couldn't hear any wind noise!  I'm convinced my hearing still isn't entirely back to what it was before!

Does that count??

-Bill

[toxo]

In a previous life I was a fabricator/welder using stick welding and I had to visit The Royal Eye Hospital in London a few times. Because the slag is non metallic they can't take it out with a magnet. They have to dig it out. The first time I put my chin on the black and chrome contraption the guy on the other side comes at you with this spikey thing, shines a really powerful light in your eye and says "Don't move, don't blink" and then pluck pluck. Believe me with the tears falling down you face you don't move and you don't blink.

When I was done a big black nurse put drops in my eye and started to bandage me up. It got tighter and tighter and I think I might have fainted. (I was only a whippersnapper). My trauma didn't end there ........

I'm outside waiting at a request bus stop at the end of a long wide road which is a one way. The buses turn into the road about 250yards away and if no-one has their arm out on my side they keep over to the far side ready to turn right. Half an hour later, there's me still there because I couldn't see the number on the bus with my one eye until it was too late and he was turning right across the road. Eventually I learned to hail whatever bus turned around that corner.

[toxo]

An almost accident but a powerful lesson learned.

A guy in the pub asked me if I wanted a couple of days work. It wasn't until later that I found out that he was a nutter with no fear of heights at all.

We went to a brickyard in Kent where they wanted another 12ft built on top of the chimney. It was tall but not so tall that this guy had built some scaffolding around it up to the top level. I use the the word "scaffolding" in the loosest possible terms. When we first got there I went up for a look at the view. No guardrail and only 3scaffold boards wide. Not impressed. My job was to send up the bricks and mortar. On the second day I found myself well in front so I went up to look at progress. He'd built around 4ft. I was on my haunches livening up the mortar out of the strong wind until I stood up. I was already on the last board, the wind got me and I did the proper windmill bit with my arms. I still wonder how I managed to stop from falling to this day.

[chuck123wapati]

43 minutes ago, billybopp said:

My first rock concert was Ted Nugent in 1980.  We rolled down the windows on the drive home, and it took a minute or so to realize we couldn't hear any wind noise!  I'm convinced my hearing still isn't entirely back to what it was before!

Does that count??

-Bill

lol I saw the Nuge in 77, maybe that's why I'm deaf too. Couldn't have been those three big waukeshas that would bellar and backfire every time you started out of the hole with about 3 miles of pipe and spewing diesel smoke so thick you couldn't see five feet. A rig is a behemoth of energy, all steel and every part is pumping, turning, Electrified , moving, hot or oily, and slippery, pressurized with steam or 3000+psi mud. And built to drill holes 5 miles deep. And if your lucky you get to work derricks, 90 feet off the floor, latching pipe on a diving board 18" wide with only a safety belt tied to your ass. If you fall and are lucky enough dangle in mid air until someone can get up to pull you in. Oh, and possible poison gas or blowouts to think about while you work lol. Damn, that was fun times if you never thrown chain you missed out on one of life's biggest adrenaline rushes. 

 

 

 

 

 

'

[Samalan]

Avoiding accidents #1: if you think Wow, this looks like something I shouldn't do then don't do it. #2 Everyone, well 99%of the time in that 10th of a second before something happens, you know it's going to happen. This is generally when using tools of some kind. like when that wrench just starts to slip and BOOM knuckles #3 rushing something not good or not paying attention, talking to someone while running that unforgivable table saw, you know that 5 horsepower one with the 12" or 14" blade, or that carving gouge you push toward your hand that's holding the wood you should not be holding and you know it!, or the safety glasses you know you should have on while driving cement nails dumbass stuff but we all do it, have done it, or will do it.

[Samalan]

One more thing, I once stepped backwards onto the 8' high set of stairs I just finished taking all the treads and risers off of there was one riser still on that caught my ass, my foot caught the stringer, as I was falling backwards, I was then hanging upside down between the stringers my wife came to the doorway and yelled are yo all right I said I think so jus need to figure out how to get out of this. LOL

[AEBL]

@Dwight - I was also in the Navy, and there's some accidents I saw there that I'd rather forget. Some that I was glad I didn't see was a fella being grabbed by a 5" 54 caliber loading pawl and stuffed into the loading breach.

In college, there were all sorts of warnings around the lathe. You had to take a safety class before you were allowed in the building. So, despite all of that, there was a gal who was running the lathe wearing a long pony tail. It was a closed casket funeral. Rotating machinery is terrifying.